Rem Koolhaas reveals title for Venice Architecture Biennale 2014

Rem Koolhaas reveals title for Venice Architecture Biennale 2014

News: architect Rem Koolhaas, the director for the Venice Architecture Biennale 2014, has revealed that the title for next year’s show will be Fundamentals.

“Fundamentals will be a biennale about architecture, not architects,” said Koolhaas, principal of OMA, speaking this morning at a press conference held by biennale president Paolo Baratta at the event’s headquarters in San Marco, Venice.

Koolhaas explained that event will “focus on histories” and the “evolution of architecture” in the last 100 years. “Architectures that were once specific and local have become interchangeable and global. National identity has seemingly been sacrificed to modernity,” he said.

Starting a year earlier than previous directors, the architect hopes to coordinate the exhibitions in each national pavilion to follow a coherent theme. “The exhibitions in the national pavilions will generate a global overview of architecture’s evolution into a single, modern aesthetic, and at the same time uncover within globalization the survival of unique national features and mentalities that continue to exist and flourish even as international collaboration and exchange intensify,” he concluded.

Koolhaas was confirmed as director earlier this month, when he first announced: “We want to take a fresh look at the fundamental elements of architecture – used by any architect, anywhere, anytime – to see if we can discover something new about architecture.”

Koolhaas was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2010 biennale, while for 2012 OMA presented an exhibition of buildings designed by European local authority architects in the 1960s and 70s.

The Venice Architecture Biennale 2014 will run from 7 June to 23 November.

Last year’s event, directed by David Chipperfield, was entitled Common Ground.

We’ve filmed a few movies with Koolhaas, including his introduction to OMA’s Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow and a series filmed at the OMA/Progress exhibition at the Barbican in Londonwatch them all here.

See more stories about Rem Koolhaas and OMA »
See more stories about the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale »

Here’s the full statement from Rem Koolhaas:


Fundamentals will be a biennale about architecture, not architects. After several Biennales dedicated to the celebration of the contemporary, Fundamentals will focus on histories – on the inevitable elements of all architecture used by any architect, anywhere, anytime (the door, the floor, the ceiling etc.) and on the evolution of national architectures in the last 100 years. In three complementary manifestations – taking place in the Central Pavilion, the Arsenale, and the National Pavilions – this retrospective will generate a fresh understanding of the richness of architecture’s fundamental repertoire, apparently so exhausted today.

In 1914, it made sense to talk about a “Chinese” architecture, a “Swiss” architecture, an “Indian” architecture. One hundred years later, under the influence of wars, diverse political regimes, different states of development, national and international architectural movements, individual talents, friendships, random personal trajectories and technological developments, architectures that were once specific and local have become interchangeable and global. National identity has seemingly been sacrificed to modernity.

Having the decisive advantage of starting work a year earlier than the Biennale’s typical schedule, we hope to use this extra time to introduce a degree of coordination and coherence among the National Pavilions. Ideally, we would want the represented countries to engage a single theme – Absorbing Modernity: 1914-2014 – and to show, each in their own way, the process of the erasure of national characteristics in favour of the almost universal adoption of a single modern language in a single repertoire of typologies.

The First World War – the beginning of modern globalization – serves a starting point for the range of narratives. The transition to what seems like a universal architectural language is a more complex process than we typically recognize, involving significant encounters between cultures, technical inventions and imperceptible ways of remaining “national”. In a time of ubiquitous google research and the flattening of cultural memory, it is crucial for the future of architecture to resurrect and expose these narratives.

By telling the history of the last 100 years cumulatively, the exhibitions in the National Pavilions will generate a global overview of architecture’s evolution into a single, modern aesthetic, and at the same time uncover within globalization the survival of unique national features and mentalities that continue to exist and flourish even as international collaboration and exchange intensify.

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Rem Koolhaas confirmed as director of Venice Architecture Biennale 2014

Rem Koolhaas

News: architect Rem Koolhaas has today been confirmed as the director of the next Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014 and wants to use the opportunity to readdress the “fundamental elements of architecture”.

“We want to take a fresh look at the fundamental elements of architecture – used by any architect, anywhere, anytime – to see if we can discover something new about architecture,” said Koolhaas, founding partner of Dutch firm OMA.

In a meeting held today, the Board of the Venice Architecture Biennale thanked 2012 director David Chipeprfield for the results of the thirteenth event, before welcoming Koolhaas as the fourteenth architecture director.

Biennale president Paolo Baratta concluded: “The Architecture Exhibitions of the Biennale have gradually grown in importance internationally. Rem Koolhaas, one of the most significant personalities among the architects of our time – who has based all his work on intense research, now renowned celebrity – has accepted to engage himself in yet another research and, why not, rethinking.”

Rumours first circulated about Koolhaas’ appointment in August, after assistant director for the 2012 biennale Kieran Long tweeted “it’s certain to be Rem Koolhaas next time. Done deal say my sources.”

Koolhaas was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2010 biennale, while for 2012 OMA presented an exhibition of buildings designed by European local authority architects in the 1960s and 70s.

We’ve filmed a few movies with Koolhaas, including his introduction to OMA’s Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow and a series filmed at the OMA/Progress exhibition at the Barbican in London – watch them here or below.

Above: Koolhaas introduces OMA’s Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow at the ICA in London.

Above: Koolhaas gives a tour of the OMA/Progress exhibition at the Barbican in London.

Above: Koolhaas talks about his preoccupations including the countryside and generic architecture at the OMA/Progress exhibition.

Above: Koolhaas speaks about his Project Japan book at the OMA/Progress exhibition.

See more stories about Rem Koolhaas and OMA »
See more stories about the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale »

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Rem Koolhaas tipped to be director of next Venice Architecture Biennale

Rem Koolhaas

Dezeen Wire: Rem Koolhaas of OMA is tipped to be director of the next Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014. Among those speculating on Twitter was assistant director for the 2012 biennale Kieran Long, who tweeted “it’s certain to be Rem Koolhaas next time. Done deal say my sources.”

Koolhaas was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2010 biennale.

The rumours coincide with the news that Koolhaas will receive the Jencks Award at the RIBA in November.

Portrait is by Dominik Gigler.

See all our stories about OMA »
See all our stories about the Venice Architecture Biennale 2012 »

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Movie: Rem Koolhaas on Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture by OMA

Movie: Rem Koolhaas was at the ICA in London this morning to launch OMA’s design for the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow. He gave Dezeen a quick introduction to the new gallery, which will be built in Gorky Park in the Russian capital for gallerist Dasha Zukhova.

See our earlier story about Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture here.

“Without a tighter union, Europe will disintegrate”- Rem Koolhaas


Dezeen Wire:
in an interview with Farah Nayeri for Bloomberg Businessweek, architect Rem Koolhaas describes the European Union as “an incomplete machine” and claims that it will “disintegrate” unless political leaders complete the task of integration begun when the EU was founded.

Koolhaas also talks about working in China, the global workforce currently inhabiting the countryside and his former employee, Zaha Hadid, who he says was “a very independent and massively talented person from the beginning.”

Dezeen spoke to Rem Koolhaas and other partners from his practice OMA at the opening of OMA/Progress, an exhibition at the Barbican art gallery in London. You can see the videos now on Dezeen Screen.

Barbican to stream live OMA debate this evening


Dezeen Wire:
 London’s Barbican Art Gallery will broadcast a live stream of a debate featuring all seven partners of architecture practice OMA in public conversation for the first time ever at 7pm this evening.

The discussion will be chaired by Tate Modern director Chris Dercon. Click here to watch it via the Barbican’s Facebook page.

See our story on the OMA/Progress exhibition at the Barbican here and a collection of interviews filmed with OMA director Rem Koolhaas and other partners on Dezeen Screen.

Here are some details about the event from the Barbican:


Barbican Art Gallery: live streaming of sold-out OMA debate with Rem Koolhaas and Chris Dercon, Director, Tate Modern – 7pm tonight

Barbican Art Gallery is delighted to announce the live streaming of tonight’s sold-out event OMA: Show & Tell from 7pm on Facebook via UStream. Chaired by Chris Dercon, Director of Tate Modern and held in the Barbican Theatre, the special event brings together all seven OMA partners – Rem Koolhaas, Victor van der Chijs, Reinier de Graaf, Ellen van Loon, David Gianotten, Iyad Alsaka and Shohei Shigematsu – for the first time in public conversation.

OMA: Show & Tell is part of a vibrant events programme including talks, salons, debates, tours and workshops accompanying Barbican Art Gallery’s autumn exhibition OMA/Progress, from 6 October 2011 to 19 February 2012. This is the first time the Barbican Art Gallery has live streamed an event.

To view the live streaming, please click here, and ‘like’ the Barbican Art Gallery Facebook page:

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“Koolhaas, Delirious in Beijing” – New York Times

Dezeen Wire: Nicolai Ouroussoff, outgoing architecture critic at the New York Times, reviews the Central China Television building in Beijing by Rem Koolhaas of OMA: “The forms are a reworking of classical perspective; the irregular structure is an attack on Modernist ideas about structural purity”.

Read Ouroussoff’s review | Read Dezeen’s August 2008 story about the CCTV building

Last month it was announced that Ouroussoff, the NYT’s architecture critic for seven years, is leaving. His replacement will be NYT arts columnist Michael Kimmelman.

In September 2010 architect Ole Scheeren, who led the CCTV design team while at OMA, left to start his own practice called Büro Ole Scheeren.

Maggie’s Centre Gartnavel by OMA

OMA Maggie's Centre Gartnavel

Work starts today on Maggie’s Centre Gartnavel, a cancer-care facility in Glasgow, Scotland, designed by Office for Metropolitan Architecture.

OMA Maggie's Centre Gartnavel

The single-story building consists of a ring of interlocking spaces.

OMA Maggie's Centre Gartnavel

The facility is the latest in an ongoing series of Maggie’s Centres designed by leading architects. See our earlier story about the centre designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.

OMA Maggie's Centre Gartnavel

See all our stories about OMA in our special category.

Maggie's Centre Gartnavel

Here’s some more info from OMA:


Construction begins on Maggie’s Centre Gartnavel designed by OMA

Rotterdam, 9 November 2010 – Ground will be broken today for Maggie’s Centre Gartnavel, a facility in Glasgow providing emotional and practical support for people living with cancer, their families and friends. Designed by OMA, the building, which is located on the grounds of Gartnavel hospital and close to the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, is one of several Maggie’s Centres in the UK and part of a pioneering project using thoughtful architecture and innovative spaces as tools for solace and healing.

OMA’s single-level, 534m2 building is a ring of interlocking, carefully composed spaces that provide moments of comfort and relief. With a flat roof and floor levels that respond to the natural topography, the rooms vary in height, with the more intimate areas programmed for personal uses such as counseling, and more open and spacious zones providing areas to gather and creating a sense of community.

Located in a natural setting, like a pavilion in the woods, the building is both introverted and extroverted: each space has a relationship either to the internal, landscaped courtyard or to the surrounding woodland and greenery, while certain moments provide views of Glasgow beyond.

The project, led by partners-in-charge Rem Koolhaas and Ellen van Loon, and associate-in-charge Richard Hollington, will be completed in summer 2011. The Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres foundation, founded by Maggie Keswick Jencks and Charles Jencks, opened the first Maggie’s Centre in Edinburgh in 1996, and has since commissioned a series of innovative buildings designed by world class architects. The foundation approached OMA to design the Glasgow site in 2007.

On OMA
OMA is a leading international partnership practicing architecture, urbanism, and cultural analysis. The office is led by five partners – Rem Koolhaas, Ellen van Loon, Reinier de Graaf, Shohei Shigematsu and Managing Partner, Victor van der Chijs – and employs a staff of around 220 of more than 35 nationalities. To accommodate a range of projects worldwide, OMA maintains offices in Rotterdam, New York, Beijing, and Hong Kong.

Current projects under construction include the new headquarters for Rothschild bank in London, a major extension to the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University, the headquarters for China Central Television in Beijing, and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in southern China


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